Excavating and grading often requires the loosening of compacted materials and the smoothing of the redistributed materials as a part of the same job. The breaking up of the compacted materials is facilitated by a toothed cutting edge on the excavating tool while the smoothing and grading is best accomplished by a straight cutting lip.
On large jobs a separate excavating machine can be used for each job. For smaller jobs contractors often do the best they can with one bucket or the other. Sometimes a toothed bucket is replaced with a straight cutting lip bucket after the bulk of the excavating is done and most of the remaining work is that of grading.
The notion of a quick change tooth bar attachment for straight cutting lip excavating equipment has been an appealing concept for over fifty years. To date attempts to reduce the concept to commercial practice have not been noteworthy.
The enormous forces and brutal treatment that the cutting edge of an excavating bucket receives must be dealt with in order for such a detachable tooth bar to have any hope of functional utility. In particular, the failure of prior art devices to provide a mounting scheme that will accommodate to wear on the cutting lip of the bucket and to avoid bending, distorting, or breaking of the tooth bar mount and it's fastener(s) have been a serious deficiency in prior art devices.